The Top 5 Games That Were Never Released

Gotham By Gaslight

Batman comics, like most comics, are a painful affair at times. With the whole Muti-verse thing, which they keep picking up and dropping like a lazy dog owner with a tennis ball, it’s hard to know what’s canon, what’s just a fun side story and what is good. Since Gotham by Gaslight was released these “move a hero from a setting we expect” stories have been put under the label of Elseworlds Stories. Gotham by Gaslight was an alternative history where Bruce Wayne is in 1889 Europe and Gotham. He’s basically still a bit of a know it all and still rocking the cape, but in this time period it’s more acceptable. Whilst on the look out for a transatlantic Jack The Ripper ol’ Bats does his usual roof jumping and gruffly asking people questions.

The cogs were in motion over at Day 1 Studios (makers of F.3.A.R) where they decided to make a game out of this property. An alpha build was put together to show potential investors and Warner Bros.

We’ve since had the Arkham games which have been awesome, the new game – Arkham origins has the potential to show people that someone other than Rocksteady can make a good Batman game, unfortunately it was never to be Day 1 Studios. It turns out that THQ, who Day 1 Studios partnered with on the project, didn’t have the pulling power for the license and both parties were shot down.

This video went viral a couple of years later and it shows what may have been. We still have the awesome comic and its various spin offs / homages, but a game set in that world had so much potential it bums me out to watch the video and think about how awesome it could have been.

On top of all this, putting Gotham By Gaslight in this list gives me the opportunity to put up this awesome Victorian / Steam Punk mod for these Justice League toys.

Eight Days

Eight Days was a game that was produced by SCE London Studios, whilst the game is technically not cancelled it has been “on hold” for about 4 years so let’s be honest, it is not coming out. [I’m petty enough to edit out that line if it ever gets an official trailer or release date].

The game has only really been shown in a series of ‘tech demos” that appeared at events like E3, people saw the footage of two men having a shoot out at a gas station and were amazed, sure there were cynics who accused the video of being CGI and not in-game, but even with that put aside, the footage shown above is interesting. Imagine if you will all the driving and gunplay of GTA IV but with those movement animations and area damage. The game was shown in alpha footage to have some amazing animation for character movement, with your hero of choice sliding across boxes and along the floor, all things we just accept now, but 5 years ago I was sold on this. The story, from what has been since leaked, is neither here nor there, it’s the usual tosh we play now. But that gameplay had the potential to make me look past any failings the story had and just have fun.

The downfall of the game? No online. According to an interview with Develop Magazine, Shuhei Yoshida, the head of Sony Worldwide Studios, said the game’s lack of online multiplayer was the main factor in the decision to cancel the game. That’s right people, in 2008 Sony, and other companies, were burning COMPLETED games due to a lack of online multiplayer, what a tossing stupid industry.

Star Wars Battlefront 3

There isn’t really much I need to say here, there’s been even more news about dropped Battlefront games recently as Lucas Arts has bitten the dust, thanks for that Mickey. With all Star Wars games being dropped quicker than an ugly baby it’s even worse when you hear how close we came to getting a Star Wars Battlefront sequel.

At first it was just rumours, Battlefront 3 to be made by Free Radical Design, the rumours grew strength with a leak here and leak there from various insiders, then Free Radical Design stepped forward and it was official; they had spent the past 2 years working on it, “YAY” everyone said, Battlefront 2 was awesome, we can’t wait to play this game. But then Free Radical finished their sentence; they had spent the past 2 years working on it but now the Star Wars license had been taken away from them, bugger.

The above footage was leaked well after this story broke, and although it is from a very early build it’s a clear reminder to everyone who played them how awesome the Battlefront series has been. When Disney got LucasArts it was said that they had been working on their own version of Battlefront 3, but this turned out to be yet another casualty of the LucasArts destruction by Disney. BOOOOO DISNEY, BOOOO!

Resident Evil 1.5

Resident Evil is a series I have a love hate relationship with. I spent most of my Top 6 Dick Moves By Games calling out the Resident Evil series for being simply unfair and broken. I also have a slight issue with Resident Evil because it scared the crap out of me as a kid, even with its bad acting and its awful graphics.

Resident Evil 1.5 as it has been dubbed, was a follow-up to the original fright fest, set in Raccoon City it was set to feature 2 characters, Leon S Kennedy, the floppy haired cop, and Elza Walker a student who was into leather a motorbikes. Shinji Mikami wanted the game to feature 2 characters who didn’t have the experiences of Chris and Jill from the first game, he wanted the players to take the roles of characters who were innocent and un-scarred by the outbreak until it hit. Around 80% towards completion Shinji decided the game was boring and decided to start again. The basic plot of an outbreak in Raccoon City was kept, but rather than have Umbrella be shut down, for being obviously evil, they were brought back for Resident Evil 2. Elza Walker was ditched for Claire Redfield searching for her brother and the game went down a storm.

The main reason I think this game should have been released is that Resident Evil has an awful habit of being slightly incestuous in its story, all loose ends have to be tied up into bows from other games and the same 5 characters have to pop up all the time, I would have liked the earlier games to have branched out into the world and tried something new with new characters, it’s at this time I will say that my favourite story line and character from Resident Evil 6 was Jake, but then by the end even that was tied up into a nice bit of canon.

Six Days in Fallujah

This game doesn’t look special, in fact engine wise it looks just about ok, bullet damage is cool, and the textures are fine, but that’s it. So why do I think that this is a game that should have been released? Because Six Days in Fallujah had the potential to change how we saw “dudebro” first person shooters.

The game was set to be based on a real Iraq battle, that being the Second Battle of Fallujah, a 2004 six-day nearly non stop fire fight for the Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines. The game was going to be based on real soldiers with real names in a real fight. This game caused outrage and commendations when it was announced, personally I think that the game would have been amazing for a couple of reasons. I’m fed up with games like Battlefield 3 or Medal of Honour, games where you are one soldier saving the world, this would have brought some genuine emotion to the genre and for the right reasons educated gamers in something we trivialise on a nearly daily basis. The game was researched to a mind bending extent; soldiers on either side, historians, witnesses and many others were all interviewed to make the game as realistic and genuine as possible.

Konami was set to release the game in 2009, with consent from the families of those involved, but with all the outcry from gamers and the wider spectrum of press Konami buckled and announced they weren’t publishing the title anymore, a weak move on their part and a sign that things were not going to change any time soon; it looks like we’re stuck with quick time events and “HOOAHS!” for a while yet.

Ruaidhri has been writing for a number of sites over the past few years, spewing his vitriol and love in equal measures on all topics from Video Games to Film and Board Games to Geek Culture. He started PixelBedlam in September of 2012. Follow him on Twitter!